If you walk to the top of Zaisan Hill, to the south of Ulaanbaatar, the eye moves up from the city on the valley floor, towards the vast ger settlements that now cover the hillsides around the city. UB’s population was 550,000 in 1989, roughly a quarter of the nation’s total. Today, it’s home to 1.4 million people — just under half of Mongolia now lives here. This population boom has come from the countryside. Over 200,000 migrants arrived into the city between 2010 and 2016. Growth like this usually points to growing prosperity and bright futures; but for many people who migrate, the reality is far more brutal.
From a huge interior being ravaged by climate change, the city of Ulaanbaatar — shooting up from the country’s recent mineral boom — offers a golden ticket. International migration has never been on the radar for most in remote Mongolia, but internal migration may profoundly change the country. Mongolia is grappling with rapid urbanization, climatic and socio-economic change. While mobility is familiar to this country of nomads, permanent migration is a new necessity.
Dzud: How Mongolia’s perfect storm emptied the countryside
Mongolia has long been known for its nomadic, pastoral traditions; living in ger tents with flocks of sheep, goats and horses. However, life is becoming harder in the countryside, as climate change threatens these livelihoods. While the economic impact of future climate change has been widely publicized, Mongolia is experiencing an impending climate disaster right now. The country has warmed by 2.07 degrees celsius in the past 70 years. It is turning parts of the country into desert. With rain becoming more scarce too, it’s stopped the grass growing in the summer, significantly reducing how much can be harvested to feed livestock. Dry summers can be catastrophic when followed by especially hard winters — known in Mongolia as a dzud. Such disasters killed 9 million animals in 2009 and a further 10 million the following year. Mongolia’s countryside is dying, and it’s making livelihoods that are generations old appear increasingly untenable.
However, climate change is only part of the migration story; government economic policy after the fall of Communism also left many rural communities exposed. Before, limits to herd size had prevented overgrazing, while stores of fodder were kept in preparation for harsh winters. With marketisation, herd size and clustering increased, damaging pasture. This growth has also been unequal, with more affluent herders now owning disproportionately large herds.
Indeed, Mongolia’s recently acquired mineral wealth has not been felt everywhere. Development revolves around the cities while the countryside struggles against economic and environmental issues. Education, healthcare and veterinary services do not extend into the interior, and poverty is growing. This rural-urban divide has become entrenched, and feels inescapable. With life at home becoming increasingly unlivable, and the hopes of better in the city, the only option is to leave.
‘The Big Smoke’ — Between Dreams and Reality in UB
Ulaanbaatar’s Sukhbatar Square and Chingghis Khan Avenue are like monuments to the recent boom in the city; towering glass office towers and high-end stores flank the long promenade, while modern SUVs crawl along in rush hour traffic. It’s this vision of a modern, prospering city which draws people here, but the reality they discover is far different.
Ulaanbataar is effectively two cities, and for those arriving, it is the other UB they inhabit. Over 60% of the population lives on the fringes, in the vast informal ger districts, a world away from the glitz of Sukhbataar Square. Growth of the ger districts has far outstripped government efforts to house new migrants; many had simply packed up their tents and brought them to the city. Indeed the prospect of living in Ugsarmal (high rises) was not just uneconomical, but contrary to their way of life. These informal fringes are not linked into the wider city’s infrastructure, and don’t benefit from the development that had been seen in the rest of the city. Air pollution is especially bad in the winter, when a reliance on coal stoves blankets the districts in thick smoke.
Nevertheless, a recent survey by the International Organization for Migration found that over half of Mongolia’s internal migrants would not consider going home again. It seems life here is still an improvement, with little to return to. Return or urban-rural migration to the countryside by any stretch is not replacing those departed for the city. While the Mongolian government recently placed a ban on migration to the capital, there is no evidence that the migration will stop in future, or that the problems causing it will go away. This trend could irreversibly change Mongolian society.
Megacities and Deserted Steppes?: The need for smart planning
Mongolia’s example demonstrates how future migration planning must look at economic and development policy to understand migration from cause to effect. Out-migration of young people and families to the city, alongside the heightening environmental and economic problems seriously threaten rural futures. A lack of cohesive social and economic policy has deepened Mongolia’s rural-urban divide, prompting out-migration. With over half the country projected to live in the capital by 2020, Ulaanbaatar is fast becoming a socio-economic island.
While a recent boom in minerals and mining has brought fast growth to the capital, the government continues to neglect more long-term, fundamental challenges. Migration brings some hope in the short term, but it cannot fill development gaps forever. In nearby Kyrgyzstan, underdevelopment and political chaos has created chronic poverty, and now 35% percent of the country relies on migrant remittances (the highest in the world) to survive. A real solution must go deeper.
Migration may be some people’s imperfect solution, but at large it threatens to create further inequality and cut off Mongolia’s ancient rural communities. The Mongolian government must pass on new revenue not only into its cities, but also into rural communities and peripheries. Services like education, healthcare and veterinarians could vastly improve quality of life in the countryside, and give people more of a reason to stay. Co-management initiatives have already helped to revitalize rural communities reducing over-grazing and modestly increasing incomes for local people.
Indeed, many of the old methods, such as fodder banks, herd management and collective planning could be a solution if extended. Furthermore, in Ulaanbaatar, efforts to integrate ger districts must be the first step in a process which spreads growth and economic opportunity throughout the city and country. While a recent ban on migration to Ulaanbaatar may have stopped immediate influxes, both cause and effect can be seen to run far deeper. This most ancient of nations cannot escape the realities of today, including mobility and climate change, but perhaps in its old ways it can find some new solutions.
Words and pictures by Evan John. Find me on Twitter @evandavidjohn or Instagram @evanjohnmedia.